Case Study: Leiden University achieves a three-week faster annual close with BlackLine Smart Close

Leiden University Builds Success with Continuous Accounting

Leiden University, founded in 1575 and consistently ranked among the world’s top 100 universities, faced an overloaded financial shared service center supporting 6,500 staff. Manual controls, heavy paperwork and open line items created peak workloads that forced long hours and limited the center’s ability to deliver timely financial insight.

Leiden implemented BlackLine Smart Close with a Continuous Accounting approach—standardizing and automating month‑end tasks and enabling continuous improvement. With a three‑month go‑live and smooth adoption, the university cut its annual close by three weeks, improved administration quality and process ownership, gained real‑time reporting for managers, and reduced audit time to a single day while moving toward a fully digitized close.

Leiden University

Rob van den Wijngaard

Financial Shared Services and Programs Manager